A marketing tagline is the one or two line descriptor that usually appears after a product logo or company name. It’s one of those things that seems simple but it’s not. Big companies pay a lot of money to advertising agencies to develop slogans for their companies and brands.
Many companies, however, do not have a large enough budget to hire an advertising agency. If you belong to one of these small budget companies, don’t despair. With a little creativity and persistence, you can develop your own slogan.
First, decide what you want to communicate with your tagline.
If you have a positioning statement and/or unique selling proposition, write them down. Your slogan should reinforce them.
Ask yourself these questions.
1) Who are your customers?
2) What benefits do you provide to your customers?
3) What feelings do you want to evoke in your customers?
4) What action are you trying to generate from your customers?
5) How do you differ from your competition?
Try to include one or more of these on your label.
Second, be prepared to brainstorm your tagline options.
Gather slogans from other companies and brands. Look in categories other than your own and try to find phrases from companies big and small.
As you find slogans, write them on index cards or individual strips of paper. You’ll mix, match, and match them with unrelated items as you brainstorm.
Pay attention to the words used, how they are put together, and which of the above questions they address. By doing this, you are more likely to find a unique angle for your own tagline.
NOTE: You are looking at others’ tag lines just to generate ideas. Don’t plagiarize. You must create your own original slogan.
To find slogans, look around you. You can find them anywhere there are ads, packaging, or logos. Look in closets, around desks, in magazines, on TV and radio commercials, in print ads, and on websites.
To get you started, here are some catchphrases I found in just a few minutes:
-hp – “invent”
– Artisan – “Makes everything possible.”
– Kenmore – “Solid as Sears.”
– Hersheys.com – “The sweetest place on the Web.”
– WebSiteMarketingPlan.com – “Marketing Plan and Web Promotion Strategy”.
– Marketing Best Practices: “The Internet’s Leading Marketing Newsletter for Small Businesses.”
– Nike just do it.”
– TLC – “Life without a script”.
– Design Surprise television program – “We are not just changing rooms. We are changing lives.”
– Schnucks (Midwest Grocer) – “We make it easy.”
– Berry Burst Cheerios – “Naturally sweetened whole grain oat cereal with real berries.”
– Altoids – “Curiously strong mints.”
– The Name Stormers – “Brand and company development”.
Find the slogans of your competitors – look at them and strive to be better and different.
Collect books that help you think of different ways to express similar ideas. My favorite is “Word Menu”. Others that are likely to be helpful are “The Describer’s Dictionary” and “Twenty-First Century Synonym and Antonym Finder”.
Third, brainstorm.
This works best if you can get a small group together, but it can also be done alone. Set up a place with plenty of room to write: use dry-erase boards, easels with large legal pads, note cards, etc.
Check your accessories. Find words or concepts in books. Rearrange your various accessories so you can see them in different ways. Write down *everything* that comes to mind and all the new ideas that each sentence sparks. They don’t have to make sense. You want a large number of ideas.
Fourth, consolidate your list.
After brainstorming, go over all of your ideas. Take out the few that you think have the best potential. Try to reduce the longest ones to fewer words.
Fifth, choose the best slogan.
You should be left with a short list of possibilities. To choose the best individual slogan, get the opinions of others. If you have some budgeted funds, work with a market research company to test tag lines with your customers.
You can also conduct informal investigations. Set up a free survey on SurveyMonkey.com and encourage people to take it. If you have direct contact with customers, ask them what they think. Give them an incentive to help you, like a discount or a small gift.
When you’re done, you’ll have a tagline that will help your business thrive.
